Shazwany Aziz was born in 1985 in Singapore, and currently works for a Paper and Book Conservator. Having studied computing, she absorbed the acute attention, which subsequently refined her own visual and conceptual vocabulary and later became interested in astute observation in the everyday.

“I have always been affected by my immediate surroundings, and my works are a result of my endless fascinations and curiosities. Together with my interest in the idea of different perspectives of objects and places, of memories and of revisitations, I tie them together and use them as subjects for my work. I express them in a form of mixed media, installation and prints as my primary medium. While attempting to embrace the chance encounters that I go through on an almost daily basis, I take on the role of being a facilitator, where I attempt to ‘reorientate’ the viewer of how I make sense of the world. My work is the tangible result of trying to capture a ‘presence’. The realms of the unknown and the known of the everyday life intrigues me, and I seek to explore and express those qualities in my work. My interest also lies in the ‘multiple meanings of what it could be, but not to be taken for what it is’, thus making full use of these characteristics as potential for the often overlooked areas of life and my art.”

Tangible Memories are found objects sewn and wrapped tightly in cloth. As memories are fragile, Shazwany wanted to protect her memory from this fragility. “I gave them each a new form, a protection against many elements like age, wear and tear and decay. I explore the temporal, emotional experience of the dialogue between the artist as the facilitator of the audience. The work was executed based on a slow process, which is, sewing. To me, the objects that I owned, I refer to them a ‘memory transporter’, where each object brings me back to the past. To me, they are tangible links of a memory. With each object that I sew, I embark myself on an aesthetic journey for the soul. It is a repetitive activity, and while in the act of sewing, I am reminiscing the memory of the object, having a close relationship with them, feeling the weight and form of the object.”